Awaken, Valkyrie
by Yanagi of the Wind
Summary: Celty's body lies comatose in Shinra's bed. Seiji has met his true beloved again, and this time she's conscious. Mika's just gotten out of the hospital, only to find her boyfriend didn't wait for her. Shizuo is ready to kill whoever hurt Celty. Izaya knows what's happening, however- the one who rendered Celty unconscious is Celty, herself. This story is set post-canon.
1. Chapter 1

I've always wondered what would happen if Celty Sturluson and her head was in the same building, separated only by a thin wooden door. The glass container her living head was kept in proved that certain preservative liquids can prevent her smoke's senses from picking up on her head's location. But... What if, just maybe, her head was set, completely free and stationary, in a room directly next to the room she sits in? Would she know it's there? Would it wake up and call out to her?

That's how I've come to be in the situation I am now, with the one and only Headless Rider sitting across from me, completely unaware that the head she's spent over twenty years searching for is in the closet next to us. Ah, boredom leads to great things. I smirk at her and wait for her to finish typing, though it doesn't take long.

[You know I'm not desperate for my head anymore. I have Shinra.]

Oh, of course I know. How could I _not_ know, with her doctor blabbing his head off all day and night about how his beloved Celty has chosen him over her own head? But I'm an information broker before I'm anything else, and I can tell she's interested. She's letting down her guard, just slightly.

"You'll have Shinra for a while~" I smile to her, playing with the fuzzy cuff of my jacket sleeve. "But how old are you? Well over two, three hundred years? You're ageless, Celty, and you'll easily outlast dear Shinra~"

I've obviously struck a nerve, because she grips her PDA tightly and slams her fingers against the keypad. She pauses for half a moment, deletes what she had written, and types again, just as rapidly. [Where are you getting at, Izaya?!] She shoves the screen in my face, her other fist on her hip. Celty's not paying attention to her surroundings now, but the wisps of smoke emanating from her helmet are forming a faint trail in the direction of the closet door.

"Your body dies when your head does, doesn't it? Shinra will grow old on you, and while you watch him die, you'll still be the same." I stride from my desk to the sofa she sits at and lean against the back, my chin resting on my palm. "At least if you had your head, you could try to die at the same time as him~"

Has Celty ever thought about suicide, or is this the first time it's ever been suggested? Is this the reason she seems so shocked?

[Do you think a dullahan could do that? Shoot their own head?] She asks after a few seconds.

"If a human can, then you could be able to, too, if you had your head~"

Celty sits still. Looking at her shoulders, I can tell that her face would be completely blank with shock- that is, if she had a face to read.

[I think I need to go. I don't feel well.] Is what she types, and she leaves calmly, either too shocked or too emotional to realize the bolder trail of smoke leading to her head. She slams the door behind her, and I know that she's angry.

Still, I'm not worried about her reaction. I'm more curious about the dimming trail of smoke. I enter the closet and pull out her head, somewhat glad that she didn't notice it being there. My experiment isn't over; while the trail has faded from view completely, I can see little swirls of the blackness around the clean edge of her neck. I smile genuinely.

I won't be bored for long.~

* * *

**A/N: Yeah! I'll be updating this story often. I have it completely plotted out! Like, 100% plotted. I've even got a friend acting as my beta (though, this chapter went without her because I was too impatient to wait for her to respond, so I tried editing it myself). **


	2. Chapter 2

Could I really do that? Have I found a reason to keep searching for my head? I thought I had given up, and that I didn't need my head anymore; Shinra thinks I'm beautiful as I am, but I've never put any thought forth that Shinra might not live as long as me. At first I was furious that Izaya would suggest something like that- that I should _kill myself_- But then I realized that he had a point. What should I do?

"Celty! You're back!" Shinra smiles at me as soon as I come through the door. He stops a few steps in front of me before he notices anything's off. "Celty, what's wrong?" He's genuinely concerned.

[Izaya brought up something about my head] I type. I hold the PDA out to him, and once he's through reading, I delete the message and write, [What do you think about suicide?] I cringe inwardly, scolding myself for poor word choice.

"Suicide?!" He gapes. "What could Izaya have said that's made you want to kill yourself?"

I wave my hands in front of him. No, I didn't mean that! [I don't! It's just that you'll get old one day, but I'll stay the same!]

Shinra's mouth opened in understanding, and he nodded. "Right. It makes sense that a dullahan would outlive her human partner..." He puts his hand to his chin and looks thoughtful. "Celty, how old are you?"

I'd blink if I were able to. [What does age have to do with suicide?]

"Usually, age has a lot to do with suicide. Teenagers and people in their early twenties are the age group that commits suicide most often-" Before he can continue to ramble off topic, I cover his mouth with my hand.

[What does _my_ age have to do with _this_ particular case?] I rephrase my question.

He smiles sheepishly, saying, "Well, you look somewhere along the lines of twenty-three, but not any older than twenty-five. You weren't born as an adult woman. Wait, were you?"

[I don't remember when or how I was born _nor_ do I remember how old I am.] I type. A little discouraged, I put my PDA down for a moment to remove my helmet. A little tuft of smoke puffs out, something he would interpret as a sigh.

Now he's rubbing his chin again, thinking. "Assuming that you could remember, you'd probably say you didn't pop out of nowhere. Maybe you came from something, like a human- not necessarily _born_ like a human, but it's unlikely you were sprouted like a seed or hatched like a bird. So, even if you're hundreds of years old with only memories from after you started searching for your head, you'd have aged, which means you aren't immortal, anyway. You would just live much longer than most other documented life forms on the planet."

I wait for him to finish his theory, but I'm not following what any of this has to do with him outliving me. [Shinra, have you missed my point? If you die years and years before I do, then what should I do then?] He's about to say something, but I hold up a finger, and then type, [Then I'll be alone here, and the whole reason I came to Japan in the first place was to find my head.] It's deleted a moment later, replaced with, [By the time you've died, I might only look thirty. I won't even have anyone who has any idea where my head would be.]

"Celty, I thought we already agreed you don't _need_ your head." He's pouting, and I feel bad. We _did_ agree to that, but I never thought about a future without him. I never thought about living long after him.

[By the time you die, Shinra, I won't want anyone else.] I _know_ I won't, because even a few years ago, I couldn't go long without missing the look he's wearing now- when he's trying to be completely serious about his side of things, but swooning at the same time because something I've said has touched him.

"Well..." I can tell he's trying to find a reason for me to forget my head for now without telling me to find someone to replace him. "If you keep your job as an underground transporter, you'll make new connections, so it isn't like you'll never have any way of finding your head after that."

[I don't feel well.] I tell him, signaling the end of the conversation. I cross my arms, just now noticing the extra smoke filling the room when I'm upset, and I wonder if it's actually anything amazing that he can read me even though I haven't got a face. His own shoulders slump, and he sighs, the same way I would have done earlier.

"We've got medication if you need any..." He tells me, though almost as soon as he's said that, he jumps up and exclaims, "Wait, you don't feel well? Like, physically unwell?!"

It takes me a moment to understand why he's excited. _Of course_, I realize. _I__ heal from everything, so I've never been sick!_ [Physically! Do you think that's bad?]

Shinra bites his lip for a second and decides, "Probably not. When people get too upset they feel ill."

[I'm a little dizzy is that normal] I type, forgetting the punctuation. He barely has time to read, because as soon as I show him the screen I erase it and ask, [Do you think my head was hurt?!]

"Woah, slow down! It's probably nothing, but if you're dizzy, you're probably just tired!" The glasses he wears have slipped down his face from when he jumped up, and it's just now that he fixes them.

I nod- even though I've only got a neck to nod- and calm down some. Usually, I don't get handed a stressful question to think on like I was today. Of course I would be tired.

"Why don't you go to bed, Celty?" He proposes. "I'll even let you sleep in my bed tonight!" He says the next part like it's a treat of some sort and not a form of asking me to sleep beside him, but it's lighthearted, so I don't jab him very hard. "Ow! Celty!"

So, maybe being tired has made me a little grouchy, and I jabbed him as hard as I normally do. It's only once... Today.

**-O-**

Celty didn't seem any better this morning when she woke up, and what's even stranger is that she woke up after I did. Almost every day, she wakes up at least an hour before me. I don't even get to see her sleeping often unless she's gone to bed early.

"Morning, Celty! Are you feeling good today?" I grin at her, but she seems a little annoyed by me when she sits up. The motion her neck makes is close enough to a shake of the head, and she reaches to the nightstand, but finds that her PDA isn't there. I leave the room and come back a few moments later with the electronic that she had left on the sofa last night and hand it to her.

[Thank-you, Shinra.] Is what she typed, but it's done much slower than her average speed. I sit down next to her and frown- Celty is the only person that I wouldn't love to see handling a strange illness.

"You're looking pale today," I tell her. She reaches up and touches her collar bone, and she scoots out of bed, heading toward the bathroom mirror.

[I am pale! What's wrong with me?] I'm not sure what to tell her, because I've never handled a sick dullahan.

"Maybe your body caught a cold?" I suggest, but she's already worried about as much as I am.

[I can heal getting slashed through the arm but I'm susceptible to a common cold?!] She looks incredibly distressed, like this cold is going to turn into some killer disease within the next day, and I can't be entirely sure it won't.

"It'll be fine!" I say anyway, and I ball up a fist and smile encouragingly. "You walk with heroes!"

[THAT GIRL DIED, SHINRA!]

"Oh, yeah." I backtrack, "You head obviously hasn't been destroyed, though; otherwise you'd have dropped like a fly. So maybe it just got hit against something, and it's dazed."

My words don't comfort her. Maybe mentioning that her head could have gotten hurt and therefore bringing up it could be in danger... It wasn't my best idea.

She shakes her head- neck, I mean- and types again. [I need to get my mind off my head for a bit. What do you want for breakfast?]

I know better than to argue with Celty when she wants to cook something, but I also don't want her doing anything while she's potentially harboring a virus deadly to dullahans that she can't fight off without _all_ her energy. "I'm not really hungry. Why don't we see if we can order takeout?"

There's another shake of the neck, and she starts heading to the kitchen. I dive next to her, however, because before she's left the room, Celty drops.

* * *

**A/N: Is there little _Angel _reference in there? Yes, there is.  
**

**I finished this chapter at the same time I finished my last one! Which is to say the only other one. I'm so glad I've already gotten this plotted out!~ My beta didn't check this one, either- or, really, I didn't ask her about it much, because she's been depressed lately for a good reason, and it would be insensitive to expect her to check my work for me. Maybe she'll feel better later~**


End file.
